French Tragic Drama in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries PDF
Preview French Tragic Drama in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
GEOFFREY BRERETON ON FRENCH TRAGIC AND COMIC DRAMA Volume 1 FRENCH TRAGIC DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES FRENCH TRAGIC DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES GEOFFREY BRERETON First published in 1973 by Methuen & Co Ltd This edition first published in 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1973 Geoffrey Brereton All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-24746-5 (Set) ISBN: 978-1-032-25151-6 (Volume 1) (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-25155-4 (Volume 1) (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-28182-5 (Volume 1) (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003281825 Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace. French Tragic Drama in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries GEOFFREY BRERETON Methuen & Co Ltd ii New Fetter Lane London EC4 First published in 1973 by Methuen & Co Ltd ii New Fetter Lane, London EC4 © 1973 Geoffrey Brereton Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd Bungay, Suffolk ISBN o 416 07630 o (hardback) o 416 78920 X (paperback) This tide is available in both hardback and paperback editions. The paperback edition is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Distributed in the USA by HARPER & ROW PUBLISHERS, INC. BARNES & NOBLE IMPORT DIVISION CONTENTS Foreword vii Prologue 1 1 The Beginnings of French Tragedy 7 2 Robert Gamier 15 3 From Gamier to Hardy 38 4 Alexandre Hardy 58 5 Towards Classical Tragedy 100 6 Pierre Corneille: The First Period, 1629-1651 126 7 Corneille's Principal Contemporaries 166 8 Pierre Corneille: The Second Period, 1659-1674 193 9 Romanesque Tragedy: Thomas Corneille and Quinault 220 10 Jean Racine 252 11 After Racine and Conclusion 282 Bibliography 294 Index 301 Tables Tragedy, Tragicomedy and Pastoral, 1621-1648 101 Plays of P. Corneille and his main contemporaries, 1634-1654 167 Plays of the two Corneilles, Quinault and Racine, 1656-1678 221 FOREWORD This book is designed as a single-volume survey of that important period of French drama which runs from the first native tragedies of the Renaissance to the culmination of 'classical* tragedy in the last decades of Louis XIV's reign. The field is vast, and to cover it within the limits that seem desirable if the book is to be of practical use and interest to the student and the general reader the treatment is necessarily selective. Comedy is omitted. Though many of its themes and situa- tions occur in a different form in tragedy and, more particularly, in tragicomedy, the undeniable relationship (which still awaits a thorough investigation) is a matter of secondary importance in this period of drama as a whole. But even after respecting the traditional separation of the tragic and comic genres, one is still left with a wealth of material, most aspects of which have been the subject of numerous specialized studies. They include the contemporary movements of thought and sensibility, the political background, and the social and theatrical conditions which helped to shape the drama. Account has been taken of all these wherever their relevance is apparent, but the main stress is on the plays themselves seen as types of drama, on the circumstances in which they were produced and their reception by contemporaries. The basic method is descriptive, since there is little value in critical interpretations if the works interpreted are hardly known. Unfortunately this must often be the case. One might assume a first-hand acquaintance with the plays of Corneille and Racine, though, even here, perhaps not with all of them. But one cannot do the same with Thomas Corneille, Quinault, Tristan, Du Ryer, Rotrou, Hardy, Montchrestien, or even Gamier. This is largely because of the inaccessibility of the works of these dramatists. In several cases they can be found only in the original editions or in later editions which have themselves become rare. This situation is slowly being remedied (see Bibliography), but there are still many interesting plays among the hundreds written which await a modern edition. Academic and commercial considerations, in this case comple- mentary, have focused excessive attention on Corneille and Racine, to
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